Search not working in finder/spotlight

When I type a query into the search or spotlight function, nothing happens.
After referring to Mac Express, I discovered that the problem is unique to my main profile (which I copied from my G5 to this MBP, which I purchased used.
Additionally, after reviewing other posts in this forum, I tried to add my HD to the spotlight  privacy setting in preferences, but got an unspecified error.
Just now I loaded a music cd, and search was able to locate files on that drive, but I could not get it to search the hard drive.
I have never done a reinstall, so am a little anxious about that, and am wondering if there's some really simple explanation for this?

Open Terminal and type
sudo /usr/bin/mdutil -Ea -i off
type your user password when required
Now type
sudo /usr/bin/mdutil -Ea -i on
After a few seconds you should see the Spotlight lens animation with a dot flashing, that means Spotlight is in the process of reindexing your disk. That could take many minutes depending on the data you have. Wait patiently until is finished.

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    Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then try again to re-index Spotlight. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
    The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
    Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
    Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
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